Jeremiah 3:1-2

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ¹ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ² 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁴ 

says the Lord.

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ⁵ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ⁶ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ⁷ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 3:8-10

3:8 She also saw ⁹  that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. ¹⁰  Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, ¹¹  she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods. ¹²  3:9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land ¹³  through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. ¹⁴  3:10 In spite of all this, ¹⁵  Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” ¹⁶  says the Lord.

Jeremiah 5:11

5:11 For the nations of Israel and Judah ¹⁷ 

have been very unfaithful to me,”

says the Lord.

Isaiah 48:8

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand. ¹⁸ 

For I know that you are very deceitful; ¹⁹ 

you were labeled ²⁰  a rebel from birth.

Ezekiel 16:15-52

16:15 “‘But you trusted in your beauty and capitalized on your fame by becoming a prostitute. You offered your sexual favors to every man who passed by so that your beauty ²¹  became his. 16:16 You took some of your clothing and made for yourself decorated high places; you engaged in prostitution on them. You went to him to become his. ²²  16:17 You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution ²³  with them. 16:18 You took your embroidered clothing and used it to cover them; you offered my olive oil and my incense to them. 16:19 As for my food that I gave you – the fine flour, olive oil, and honey I fed you – you placed it before them as a soothing aroma. That is exactly what happened, declares the sovereign Lord.

16:20 “‘You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them ²⁴  as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution not enough, 16:21 you slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. ²⁵  16:22 And with all your abominable practices and prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, kicking around in your blood.

16:23 “‘After all of your evil – “Woe! Woe to you!” declares the sovereign Lord – 16:24 you built yourself a chamber ²⁶  and put up a pavilion ²⁷  in every public square. 16:25 At the head of every street you erected your pavilion and you disgraced ²⁸  your beauty when you spread ²⁹  your legs to every passerby and multiplied your promiscuity. 16:26 You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your sexually aroused neighbors, ³⁰  multiplying your promiscuity and provoking me to anger. 16:27 So see here, I have stretched out my hand against you and cut off your rations. I have delivered you into the power of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed by your obscene conduct. 16:28 You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians because your sexual desires were insatiable; you prostituted yourself with them and yet you were still not satisfied. 16:29 Then you multiplied your promiscuity to the land of merchants, Babylonia, ³¹  but you were not satisfied there either.

16:30 “‘How sick is your heart, declares the sovereign Lord, when you perform all of these acts, the deeds of a bold prostitute. 16:31 When you built your chamber at the head of every street and put up your pavilion in every public square, you were not like a prostitute, because you scoffed at payment. ³² 

16:32 “‘Adulterous wife, who prefers strangers instead of her own husband! 16:33 All prostitutes receive payment, ³³  but instead you give gifts to every one of your lovers. You bribe them to come to you from all around for your sexual favors! 16:34 You were different from other prostitutes ³⁴  because no one solicited you. When you gave payment and no payment was given to you, you became the opposite!

16:35 “‘Therefore O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: 16:36 This is what the sovereign Lord says: Because your lust ³⁵  was poured out and your nakedness was uncovered in your prostitution with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children you have given to them, 16:37 therefore, take note: I am about to gather all your lovers whom you enjoyed, both all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around, and I will expose your nakedness to them, and they will see all your nakedness. ³⁶  16:38 I will punish you as an adulteress and murderer deserves. ³⁷  I will avenge your bloody deeds with furious rage. ³⁸  16:39 I will give you into their hands and they will destroy your chambers and tear down your pavilions. They will strip you of your clothing and take your beautiful jewelry and leave you naked and bare. 16:40 They will summon a mob who will stone you and hack you in pieces with their swords. 16:41 They will burn down your houses and execute judgments on you in front of many women. Thus I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer give gifts to your clients. ³⁹  16:42 I will exhaust my rage on you, and then my fury will turn from you. I will calm down and no longer be angry.

16:43 “‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth and have enraged me with all these deeds, I hereby repay you for what you have done, ⁴⁰  declares the sovereign Lord. Have you not engaged in prostitution on top of all your other abominable practices?

16:44 “‘Observe – everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: “Like mother, like daughter.” 16:45 You are the daughter of your mother, who detested her husband and her sons, and you are the sister of your sisters who detested their husbands and their sons. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 16:46 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived north ⁴¹  of you with her daughters, and your younger sister, who lived south ⁴²  of you, was Sodom ⁴³  with her daughters. 16:47 Have you not copied their behavior ⁴⁴  and practiced their abominable deeds? In a short time ⁴⁵  you became even more depraved in all your conduct than they were! 16:48 As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never behaved as wickedly as you and your daughters have behaved.

16:49 “‘See here – this was the iniquity ⁴⁶  of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help ⁴⁷  the poor and needy. 16:50 They were haughty and practiced abominable deeds before me. Therefore when I saw it I removed them. 16:51 Samaria has not committed half the sins you have; you have done more abominable deeds than they did. ⁴⁸  You have made your sisters appear righteous with all the abominable things you have done. 16:52 So now, bear your disgrace, because you have given your sisters reason to justify their behavior. ⁴⁹  Because the sins you have committed were more abominable than those of your sisters; they have become more righteous than you. So now, be ashamed and bear the disgrace of making your sisters appear righteous.

Hosea 5:7

5:7 They have committed treason ⁵⁰  against the Lord,

because they bore illegitimate children.

Soon ⁵¹  the new moon festival will devour them and their fields.

Hosea 6:7

Indictments Against the Cities of Israel and Judah

6:7 At Adam ⁵²  they broke ⁵³  the covenant;

Oh how ⁵⁴  they were unfaithful ⁵⁵  to me!

Malachi 2:11

2:11 Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ⁵⁶  For Judah has profaned ⁵⁷  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ⁵⁸ 

[3:1]  ¹ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[3:1]  ² tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:1]  ³ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

[3:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[3:8]  ⁹ tc Heb “she [‘her sister, unfaithful Judah’ from the preceding verse] saw” with one Hebrew ms, some Greek mss, and the Syriac version. The MT reads “I saw” which may be a case of attraction to the verb at the beginning of the previous verse.

[3:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.

[3:8]  ¹¹ tn The words “Even after her unfaithful sister, Judah, had seen this” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit in the connection and are supplied for clarification.

[3:8]  ¹² tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

[3:9]  ¹³ tc The translation reads the form as a causative (Hiphil, תַּהֲנֵף, tahanef) with some of the versions in place of the simple stative (Qal, תֶּחֱנַף, tekhenaf) in the MT.

[3:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “because of the lightness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”

[3:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And even in all this.”

[3:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “ has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”

[5:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

[48:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”

[48:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[48:8]  ²⁰ tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[16:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “it” (so KJV, ASV); the referent (the beauty in which the prostitute trusted, see the beginning of the verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:16]  ²² tc The text as written in the MT is incomprehensible (“not coming [plural] and he will not”). Driver has suggested a copying error of similar-sounding words, specifically לֹא (lo’) for לוֹ (lo). The feminine participle בָאוֹת (va’ot) has also been read as the feminine perfect בָאת (va’t). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:228, n. 15.b, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:486, n. 137.

[16:17]  ²³ tn Or perhaps “and worshiped them,” if the word “prostitution” is understood in a figurative rather than a literal sense (cf. CEV, NLT).

[16:20]  ²⁴ sn The sacrifice of children was prohibited in Lev 18:21; 20:2; Deut 12:31; 18:10.

[16:21]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and you gave them, by passing them through to them.” Some believe this alludes to the pagan practice of making children pass through the fire.

[16:24]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew גֶּב (gev) may represent more than one word, each rare in the Old Testament. It may refer to a “mound” or to “rafters.” The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate interpret this as a brothel.

[16:24]  ²⁷ tn Or “lofty place” (NRSV). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:229, and B. Lang, Frau Weisheit, 137.

[16:25]  ²⁸ tn Heb “treated as if abominable,” i.e., repudiated.

[16:25]  ²⁹ tn The only other occurrence of the Hebrew root is found in Prov 13:3 in reference to the talkative person who habitually “opens wide” his lips.

[16:26]  ³⁰ tn Heb “your neighbors, large of flesh.” The word “flesh” is used here of the genitals. It may simply refer to the size of their genitals in general, or, as the translation suggests, depicts them as sexually aroused.

[16:29]  ³¹ tn Heb “Chaldea.” The name of the tribal group ruling Babylon (“Chaldeans”) and the territory from which they originated (“Chaldea”) is used as metonymy for the whole empire of Babylon.

[16:31]  ³² tn The Hebrew term, which also occurs in vv. 34 and 41 of this chapter, always refers to the payment of a prostitute (Deut 23:19; Isa 23:17; Hos 9:1; Mic 1:7).

[16:33]  ³³ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[16:34]  ³⁴ tn Heb “With you it was opposite of women in your prostitution.”

[16:36]  ³⁵ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[16:37]  ³⁶ sn Harlots suffered degradation when their nakedness was exposed (Jer 13:22, 26; Hos 2:12; Nah 3:5).

[16:38]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and I will judge you (with) the judgments of adulteresses and of those who shed blood.”

[16:38]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and I will give you the blood of rage and zeal.”

[16:41]  ³⁹ tn The words “to your clients” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied.

[16:43]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “your way on (your) head I have placed.”

[16:46]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “left.”

[16:46]  ⁴² tn Heb “right.”

[16:46]  ⁴³ sn Sodom was the epitome of evil (Deut 29:23; 32:32; Isa 1:9-10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Lam 4:6; Matt 10:15; 11:23-24; Jude 7).

[16:47]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “walked in their ways.”

[16:47]  ⁴⁵ tn The Hebrew expression has a temporal meaning as illustrated by the use of the phrase in 2 Chr 12:7.

[16:49]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “guilt.”

[16:49]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “strengthen the hand of.”

[16:51]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “you have multiplied your abominable deeds beyond them.”

[16:52]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “because you have interceded for your sisters with your sins.”

[5:7]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “dealt treacherously against” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “dealt faithlessly”; NLT “betrayed the honor of.”

[5:7]  ⁵¹ tn The particle עַתָּה (’attah) often refers to the imminent or the impending future: “very soon” (BDB 774 s.v. עַתָּה 1.b). In Hosea it normally introduces imminent judgment (Hos 2:12; 4:16; 5:7; 8:8, 13; 10:2).

[6:7]  ⁵² tn Or “Like Adam”; or “Like [sinful] men.” The MT reads כְּאָדָם (kÿ’adam, “like Adam” or “as [sinful] men”); however, the editors of BHS suggest this reflects an orthographic confusion of בְּאָדָם (bÿ’adam, “at Adam”), as suggested by the locative adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) in the following line. However, שָׁם sometimes functions in a nonlocative sense similar to the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Behold!”). The singular noun אָדָם (’adam) has been taken in several different ways: (1) proper name: “like Adam” (כְּאָדָם), (2) collective singular: “like [sinful] men” (כְּאָדָם), (3) proper location: “at Adam,” referring to a city in the Jordan Valley (Josh 3:16), emending comparative כְּ (kaf) to locative בְּ (bet, “at”): “at Adam” (בְּאָדָם). BDB 9 s.v. אָדָם 2 suggests the collective sense, referring to sinful men (Num 5:6; 1 Kgs 8:46; 2 Chr 6:36; Jer 10:14; Job 31:33; Hos 6:7). The English versions are divided: KJV margin, ASV, RSV margin, NASB, NIV, TEV margin, NLT “like Adam”; RSV, NRSV, TEV “at Adam”; KJV “like men.”

[6:7]  ⁵³ tn The verb עָבַר (’avar) refers here to breaking a covenant and carries the nuance “to overstep, transgress” (BDB 717 s.v. עָבַר 1.i). Cf. NAB “violated”; NRSV “transgressed.”

[6:7]  ⁵⁴ tn The adverb שָׁם (sham) normally functions in a locative sense meaning “there” (BDB 1027 s.v. שָׁם). This is how it is translated by many English versions (e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). However, in poetry שָׁם sometimes functions in a nonlocative sense to introduce expressions of astonishment or when a scene is vividly visualized in the writer’s imagination (see BDB 1027 s.v. 1.a.β), or somewhat similar to the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Behold!”): “See [שָׁם] how the evildoers lie fallen!” (Ps 36:13); “Listen! The cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter! See [שָׁם]! The shouting of the warrior!” (Zeph 1:14); “They saw [רָאוּ, ra’u] her and were astonished…See [שָׁם] how trembling seized them!” (Ps 48:7). In some cases, it introduces emphatic statements in a manner similar to הִנֵּה (“Behold!”): “Come and see [לְכוּ וּרְאוּ, lÿkhu urÿ’u] what God has done…Behold [שָׁם], let us rejoice in him!” (Ps 66:5); “See/Behold [שָׁם]! I will make a horn grow for David” (Ps 132:17). The present translation’s use of “Oh how!” in Hos 6:7 is less visual than the Hebrew idiom שָׁם (“See! See how!”), but it more closely approximates the parallel English idiom of astonishment.

[6:7]  ⁵⁵ tn The verb בָּגַד (bagad, “to act treacherously”) is often used in reference to faithlessness in covenant relationships (BDB 93 s.v. בָּגַד).

[2:11]  ⁵⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:11]  ⁵⁷ tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”

[2:11]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the Lord and “remarriage” to pagan gods. But spiritual intermarriage found expression in literal, physical marriage as well, as vv. 14-16 indicate.